Patterico:
To the endless barrage of court cases holding gay marriage is a constitutional right, add one contrary view to the mix:
The same-sex marriage movement lost its first major case in a federal appeals court Thursday after a lengthy string of victories, creating a split among the nation’s circuit courts that virtually guarantees Supreme Court review.
The 2-1 ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit reversed district court rulings that had struck down gay marriage bans in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.
More important, it gives Supreme Court justices an appellate ruling that runs counter to four others from the 4th, 7th, 9th and 10th circuits. Those rulings struck down same-sex marriage bans in Virginia, Indiana, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Utah, Idaho and Nevada, leading to similar action in neighboring states.
The opinion, in my view, is too far wordy and filled with apologetics — but one key passage stands out:
Yes, the Fourteenth Amendment is old; the people ratified it in 1868. And yes, it is generally worded; it says: “[N]or shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Nobody in this case, however, argues that the people who adopted the Fourteenth Amendment understood it to require the States to change the definition of marriage.
The will of the voters!! We did the same in California but the liberal wackos would NOT stop!! Shame
The ruling also said:
“It is no less unfair to paint the proponents of the measures as a monolithic group of hate-mongers than it is to paint the opponents as a monolithic group trying to undo American families.”
The left, and especially the radical militant gay movement, has tried to paint anyone who holds traditional views of the definition of marriage, especially those who base their views on their religious beliefs, as hate-mongers and Nazis. While the gay lobby demands total acceptance (the whole “we just want tolerance” meme went out the window a long time ago), they give little acceptance, or even tolerance, to those with opposing views. If gays were demonized as badly by Christians as Christians are demonized by gays, we would expect the press to report that. Instead, we mostly get crickets from the press.
The 6th has it right; it is a state issue, not a federal issue, to be determined by judges who, by all judicial standards should have recused themselves from these decisions, and no amount of bastardizing the 14th Amendment changes that.